Cheapest Web Hosting

Undoubtedly, Electronic Commerce (or ecommerce in short) is the greatest gift of the advancements in web technology. Ecommerce allows merchants of all classes and business lines to trade electronically in a secured environment. Ecommerce has no boundaries. Merchants find it easy to get newer clients everyday internationally. The successes of EBay and Amazon websites underscore the stupendous credibility of ecommerce as a trading platform.

Merchants participating in ecommerce need a secure ecommerce website and ecommerce hosting services. Ecommerce hosting is a lucrative business in which a company provides all kinds of facilities by which a merchant can sell wares to a global clientele over the Internet. The facilities needed for ecommerce are (but not limited to) the following:

• A high capacity web server
• Ecommerce website design (including cataloging services)
• Software for electronic shopping carts, and to accept, process and confirm sales orders
• Providing templates for building virtual storefronts / online catalogs
• Managing secure e-payment mechanism
• Inventory control

A merchant gets in touch with an ecommerce service provider in order to procure space in its web server. Space in web servers are usually rented out on a monthly or yearly basis. Simultaneously, software for processing online orders is also leased out to the merchant.

There are two modes of service – dedicated and shared. Commonly, an ecommerce hosting company’s servers cater to the requirements of more than one merchant on a shared basis. If the web traffic of a merchant is considerably large, and it suffers because of shared operation, it may opt for dedicated servers. The service providers usually assist merchants in opening up Internet e-payment accounts. These accounts are bank accounts capable of Internet transactions through Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other credit card companies.

The ecommerce hosting service providers are capable of managing the technical nitty-gritty behind the day-to-day maintenance of a commercial web server. For start-ups and smaller companies, opting for an ecommerce host is an economically viable option. These companies can avoid expenditure in costly servers, software connectivity. Moreover, they can escape the burden behind continued maintenance and upkeep of these components for ensuring a 24×7 service. Reliability is the essence of ecommerce hosting service providers. A reliable host should be ready to extend support even during off-peak hours. A merchant cannot afford to lose business on account of a server that has gone down all of a sudden.
For a successful electronic commerce business, it is mandatory to choose a trustworthy hosting partner. The service provider should have goodwill in the market. This in turn is essential to establish your goodwill and credibility in the ecommerce world. Ecommerce merchants should give due importance to the insecurity of internet shoppers about leakage of their credit card details while transacting over the web. Today, hacking of financially sensitive credit card information is not at all uncommon. A credible host capable of providing a robust, secured e-payment platform can alleviate the shoppers’ fear to a great extent.

Typically, a credible ecommerce host offers the following services:

• 24x7x365 service and technical support to ecommerce merchants
• Live chat, email support at all times, preferably a human support most of the times
• Fully automated, comprehensive package to track web traffic
• Shopping cart software
• Periodic database backups to ensure business continuity
• Upgrade facility to better ecommerce packages in sync with growing business needs
• Provision of secured server, with latest anti-virus and anti-hacking tools
• Support for scripting and server-side programming
• Instant switching to backup server in case the master server crashes or during server maintenance

A merchant should do thorough research before selecting an ecommerce host. The hosting charge varies from one service provider to another and depends on the service package you opt for and the quality of support you expect. There are some free ecommerce service providers also. However, their services are unreliable and insecure. These free ecommerce hosting provides make money in different ways – mostly through online ads. The flop side of free providers is their unstable service. It has been observed that free hosting service providers stop functioning abruptly within months or even weeks of commencement of their operations.

A merchant should search for dependable ecommerce hosts over the internet and eventually narrow down the list into two or three. One way to check credibility of the hosts is to visit and study carefully the sites that are currently supported by these companies. The primary expectations can be summed up into two generic requirements – reliability and customer service. No hosting company under the sun can guarantee a 100% uptime, however, today, in the age of advanced hardware and software technologies, 99.9% uninterrupted service level can be achieved. The most important reliability factor is how quickly a service provider can spring back to service in case of a downtime. In real life, unexpected interruptions do happen and credible ecommerce hosts have to invest considerably to ensure business continuity. What’s more important is – host companies should have preventive mechanism in place for prompt restoration of services in cases of disasters like flood, fire, earthquake etc.

If you have just finished your website design and eagerly waiting to hit the web, finding the best web hosting service at the right price is the last hurdle you need to cross. Today, the website hosting market is replete with umpteen hosting companies, each promising to outclass the other with a plethora of services at the cheapest rate. Web masters find it really difficult to find the fittest one among the lot. This article will help you to select the right hosting company by considering several criteria.

The very first thing you need is to assess your requirements. Let us illustrate this. The hosting requirements for a personal website will differ largely from that of a corporate or a product website. The requirement for server space and other software and hardware support will be minimal for a personal webpage, while these requirements will be significantly greater in case of a corporate or an ecommerce website. You need to take into account your present hosting needs, as well as what you expect in the near future.

The next thing that will come into your mind is the website hosting rate. Different hosting companies offer differing rates. If a hosting company offers dedicated servers, then its service charges will naturally shoot up. On the other side, companies that offer cheap hosting services on a shared basis with limited bandwidth will naturally charge less. The point here is – if you are planning to host a personal website or a fun / game website without any commercial objective, you may settle for the cheap ones. On the other hand, if you are planning to host a site, such as a corporate /product/ecommerce site, with serious business intent, then you should not settle for free or cheap ones. After all, you cannot put your reputation and credibility at stake for the saving of a few bucks. You should first evaluate every other criterion and finally select one based on rate from a shortlist of two to three.

Reliability and speed is another crucial factor. Today, a best hosting company has the ability to guarantee 99% or a little more uptime (though 100% can never be guaranteed). Wide bandwidth should ensure smooth flow of web traffic and satisfied visitors to your site. Hosting companies that are technically equipped to enter into a business continuity agreement and have multiple servers on standby for recovery from disasters (say, fire, flood, and earthquake etc.) are certainly credible. These are all the more important for continued hassle-free hosting of commercial sites.

The next important factor to watch out for is the data transfer rate and disk space allotted to you. Website hosting companies have to pay for the bandwidth they consume, and in turn, they will bill proportionate amounts to you – the client. It is wise to pay upfront the amount for the expected data transfer. Otherwise, you might be bombarded with a surprise bill. Another important but related decision is to decide upon the required disk space and reserve that. Note that most websites require a space less than 3 GB.

The extent of technical support provided by the hosting company is another crucial determinant for the success of your web service. The best hosting support possible is 24x7x365. In this competitive age, this has become the most desired service level. You cannot allow your visitors (and therefore your business to suffer) because of downtime. You can take a surprise check of the promised service by shooting off an email at the odd hour.

Certain websites require support on special features. Evaluate carefully whether your host can accommodate special support for a variety of scripts, database, shopping carts and secure servers. Support for desired DBMS (Database Management System) in tandem with your growing business needs is another crucial judgment criterion.

Last, but not the least, you should judge a host on the basis of freedom to control your site to some extent. As a webmaster, it is not feasible to turn to the hosting company’s support chain to address every trivial requirement like changing passwords and email addresses. There should be an administrative control panel for your website under your control.

Let us now share a few thoughts about web hosting plans available in the website hosting market. Typically, there are three types of hosting packages available for you to choose from: discount web hosting, Windows web hosting, and Linux web hosting. Discount web hosting or Cheap web hosting is most suitable for start-ups. Start-ups and small companies generally have limited funding and tend to opt for the discount web hosting services with a low price tag. Generally, the package ranges from $5 to $6 a month. The best discount web hosting deal should not cross the $10 a month mark. If you have a little more money, you can easily opt for a Windows or a Linux hosting plan. Such plans are sufficient to cater to all your day-to-day website maintenance requirements. A Windows plan typically offers support for ASP and MSSQL. Basic Windows and Linux plans are available in the range of $10 to $15. If you have more requirements like greater disk space, increased bandwidth, and other requirements, the price tag will rise accordingly.

Cheap hosting can be a good way to get a bargain. It would make sense to know what to look in a cheap hosting company before you opt for the hosting servers. If you want to start an online business, then you need a cheap web host to make your business lucrative. It is also advisable to investigate a cheap web hosting company vigilantly and find if it will be suitable for your online business.

The suitable cheap web hosting company will not be found in a day – the ideal cheap website hosting company will require your time, perseverance and research. There are lots of cheap hosting companies that offer excellent service, so it makes no sense to pay a whole lot of money for web hosting – it can come to you cheap and good.

The Essentials

The first thing that you should look for in a cheap web hosting company is the availability of the server. Remember poor servers cause poor hosting, so the servers from cheap hosting company have to be openly available all the time. This is essential as you do not know when your customer will be visiting your website and reading the information on the webpage and ultimately get buying your product. If the visitor receives a server error page when he/she wants to buy a product, then in all probability your business loses a prospective buyer.

The website-hosting servers should also take very little time to load the website pages. This is the age of the high speed Internet, so nobody will be waiting for long to get the web pages loaded. Do not let the visitors go for the faster websites – make your option better by having a good web hosting company that gets the loading done very fast.

Another key to knowing a good cheap web hosting company is that the time-period the company has been around in business. If a cheap web host has been around with its hosting service for more than 5 years and is doing well, then you can be assured that you can rely on it. It will be a good bet for your online business to run successfully.

Make sure that the cheap hosting company is a well-managed one. A web hosting company that is well managed will keep you free from the troubles of up-keeping complicated server technology and will be responsible for proper technical maintenance. This will make way for you to focus on your online business and you can leave the technical stuff for the web-hosting support professional.

The common features you need to look for in a web hosting company:

• A control panel is an interface that allows you to access your website on the web server. Here, you have the options of setting up, updating as well as customizing your website.
• The bandwidth is also necessary in cheap website hosting for the visitors to make requests for files on your website and downloading them to their personal computers.
• Make sure you have enough disk space for further growth and elaboration plans on your website. It is essential to go for a cheap web host that has a bigger plan, if you need to upgrade your website and your online business.
• Look for an account that has a database. You will need it if you have to store dynamically accessible data like Interactive news, user accounts, message boards, stock prices, forum and maps.
• Check the scripting language– the top web hosting companies use Unix and Linux platform, and the languages used are PHP, PERL and CGI. It is necessary to get a cheap web host that supports the latest version for the purpose of maximizing the latest web technologies and all this should come for the fee that you need to pay.
• A good customer support system is vital even if you are a novice or an expert in web hosting. If the database is huge, then you do not need any direct assistance from the customer support system, however, if you are too lazy to get the answers you can opt for the direct customer support service. The direct customer support can come in the forms of phone support, email support, as well as live chat support.

A cheap web hosting company should also have a good marketing strategy. A web host should come with enough existing members and there should be steady growth of new members. To put it in a gist, when you are entering in a deal with a cheap web hosting company, look into the 6 factors – service, speed, uptime, reliability, guarantee and price. If you are satisfied with these six factors then you can be assured that the cheap hosting would provide high quality and ideal service.